The gain past which nothing is worth wanting, and the pain that cannot move it.
We keep leaving each happiness the moment a better one seems to appear. This verse names the one gain after which there is no 'better' left to imagine, and gives its proof: not a calm mood, but a steadiness that survives the sharpest pain.
Having gained this, one no longer counts any other gain as greater. Standing firm in it, one is not shaken even by the heaviest sorrow.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Krishna has just described the yogi whose mind has settled into stillness. Now he names that stillness by what it actually delivers: a gain so complete that nothing looks better beside it, and a steadiness so real that even the heaviest pain cannot move it.
The teaching
There is a gain that ends the search for anything further. Having reached it, you count no other gain greater, not because you have stopped wanting, but because nothing higher remains to be wanted. The mind moves from a good toward a better one only while a better one can still be seen; here, the commentators say, the very limit has been reached, so there is nowhere left to drift. What was to be done is done; what was to be gained is gained. Then comes the harder proof. Standing firm in this, you are not shaken even by heavy, severe pain. Shankara and Madhusudana both reach for the sharpest case they can imagine, a weapon's fall, precisely because a milder test would prove a smaller claim. Sridhara keeps it closer to ordinary life: even cold, heat, the small recurring frictions of a body in the world, cannot dislodge this standing. Read together, the two halves define the state by its fruit on both sides at once, warding off what is unwanted and holding what is wanted, and this double fruit, Sridhara notes, is exactly what earns the state its name.
The doubt that rises
Does this promise that a realized person no longer feels pain at all? Or does the pain still arrive, and only lose its power to move the mind that has found this gain?
Where the paths divide
Read as completing a description already underway.
Shankara treats this verse as finishing what has been said since the mind's coming to rest was first named two verses earlier: this is the special state of the Self, marked exactly by unsurpassed gain and unshakeable steadiness. His reasoning stays implicit but is exact. A gain that is truly final cannot have anything superior set beside it, and a standing grounded in the Self rather than the body can survive even the extreme test of a weapon's fall, which he reaches for because a lesser pain would prove a smaller point.
Read as a discipline held in relation, not dissolved into an undifferentiated Self.
Ramanuja keeps the picture embodied. What is gained is the discipline of yoga itself, valued above every other gain and still longed for even when the practitioner rests from active practice. The pain that cannot shake this steadiness is given a human face, the death of a worthy son, which keeps the claim about fortitude carried through real attachment and real grief, not about a self that has ceased to feel its world.
Honestly limited to a single surviving fragment.
No full paragraph of Madhva's own composed for this exact verse survives. The one line on file, treating 6.21 and 6.22 as continuous, reads the happiness described here as having, in truth, the form of the Lord, not as the self's own independent achievement. What can be said with honesty stops there; a fuller argument along these lines belongs to Jayatirtha, Madhva's sub-commentator, and is not offered here as Madhva's own stated word.
Absent for this verse rather than invented.
No commentary from the Shuddhadvaita lineage is on file addressing this verse. Rather than construct a confident reading in Vallabha's or Purushottama's voice from general principles, that absence is simply named here as what it is: a gap in what survives, not a position taken.
Source is a shared passage; the specific claim goes uncommented.
Abhinavagupta's surviving comment runs as one continuous passage from 6.20 through 6.23, not addressed to 6.22 on its own. Within that sweep he describes a happiness in which objects no longer cloud the mind, and a bond with pain that breaks once an old habitual disturbance is met with compassion rather than delusion. On a Kashmir Shaiva reading, one might extend this to say the gain past which nothing is greater names the self's own recognized freedom rather than anything acquired, but that extension is flagged here as a possibility only, not his stated word on this verse.
Read through the concrete, recurring hardships of daily practice.
Sridhara names the happiness here niratishaya, surpassing all, so that nothing can be set beside it as superior. He is notably concrete about the pain side of the claim too: not only the dramatic case of a mortal wound but the ordinary discomforts of cold and heat. His sharpest observation is structural: this one clause states the mark of yoga by its fruit on both sides together, warding off hardship and securing happiness at once, and that double fruit is what makes the state deserve its name.
All the sources that address this verse agree on its shape: a gain past which nothing is greater, and a steadiness that survives even heavy pain. They differ, where they speak at all, on what grounds that steadiness, an identity with the Self, a discipline held in relation to the Lord, a dependence on the Lord's own nature, or a recognition of freedom already present. And for two of the six schools, Shuddhadvaita and, specifically for this verse, Madhva's own developed reasoning, the honest state of the sources is thinness or silence, which this page keeps visible rather than filling in.
A question to carry
When you notice yourself reaching past what you already have for something that only seems better, what would it take to trust that some gains, rightly seen, truly have no better beyond them?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
May you find, even briefly, some ground that asks nothing further of you, and may whatever pain still comes lose its power to move you from it.
Each school is voiced from the commentators named above. Their full words, every translation, and where the schools agree and differ wait in the reading desk just below. Open the commentary desk.
Krishna has just described the yogi whose mind has come to rest in the Self; here he names that rest by its double fruit, the surpassing gain it secures and the heaviest sorrow it withstands.
Where they agreethe convergence
Across schools and centuries the commentators come to the same ground. These are the points they share, and the voices that hold each one.
This is the gain past which no further gain seems greater; once reached, the restless comparing of the mind, this against some imagined better thing, simply runs out of ground.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
The verse names a gain that ends all further seeking. Having gained 'which', the yogi thinks no other gain greater than it. The commentators who address the verse directly identify that 'which' as the gain of the Self, the happiness belonging to one's own true nature, and the point is decisive: once reached, there is nothing left to want because nothing higher exists to be wanted.
The reason the seeking stops is that this happiness is read as truly unsurpassed, not merely very great, so there is no 'more' left anywhere to drift toward.
Across Bhakti, AdvaitaŚrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śrīdhara and Madhusūdana’s words
This happiness is read as unsurpassable in the strict sense, not merely very great. The mind moves from a good toward a better one only while a better one can still be seen; here the very limit of happiness has been reached, so there is nothing left to drift toward. The settled thought that follows is rendered as: what was to be done is done, what was to be attained is attained.
The harder proof follows: standing firm here, one is not overpowered even by the sharpest pain, tested against the extreme case precisely to make the claim as strong as it can be.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
The verse then poses its harder test. Established in this state, the yogi is not shaken even by heavy, severe pain. Shankara and Madhusudana both reach for the sharpest instance, the fall of a weapon, while Sridhara names the recurring, lesser hardships of cold and heat; together they cover the claim from its worst case down to its ordinary ones.
Read together, the two halves state the mark of yoga by its fruit on both sides: it wards off what is unwanted and it secures what is wanted, at once.
Across Bhakti, AdvaitaŚrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śrīdhara and Madhusūdana’s words
Read together, the two halves define the yoga-state by its fruit on both sides at once: it wards off the unwanted, so heavy pain cannot dislodge it, and it secures the wanted, so the supreme happiness is gained and held. Sridhara names this double mapping explicitly as the very mark of yoga.
Where a school's own commentary on this exact verse is thin or missing, that absence is named honestly here rather than papered over with invented confidence.
Across Viśiṣṭādvaita, DvaitaRāmānuja · MadhvaIn Rāmānuja and Madhva’s words
Both Ramanuja and, on the fragment that survives, the wider Dvaita line insist that whatever this gain is, it is not simply the self's own independent achievement: for Ramanuja the discipline itself remains a good held in ongoing relation to the Lord, and for the Madhva line the very happiness described here is said to have, in truth, the form of the Lord.
This is the shared ground; it can be carried as it is. Below is where they differ.
Where they differthe divergence
Viśiṣṭādvaita, in their fuller words
Ramanuja keeps the gain relational rather than absorptive: what is gained is the discipline of yoga itself, valued above every other gain and still longed for even when the practitioner rests from active practice. The pain that cannot shake this steadiness is given a human face, the loss of a worthy son, keeping the picture one of an embodied person in ongoing relation to duties and to the Lord, not a self that has ceased to register its world.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
The single surviving line attached to this passage reads the happiness described here as having, in truth, the form of the Lord, denying that it is the self's own independent possession. No fuller paragraph of Madhva's own on 6.22 survives; what can honestly be said is only this narrow point, offered without extending it further into claims the source itself does not make.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara reads the verse as naming the gain, the happiness of the Self called niratishaya, surpassing all, and then reading the standing that follows as mapped by two fruits together, the warding off of unwanted hardship and the securing of wanted happiness. He is notably concrete about ordinary, recurring pains, cold and heat, rather than only the single dramatic case of a mortal wound, keeping the claim close to a practicing yogi's actual life.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Read for a general audience, Madhusudana's own careful two-step argument reads as a portable account of psychological stability: a mind stops chasing anything once it has reached something past which no better thing can be conceived, and that same settledness, tested from the inside, proves itself precisely by surviving contact with the worst pain rather than merely the absence of any pain at all.
A few questions to carry
These ask for understanding, not recall; each answer is settled by the commentary itself.
For a second sitting
Carry this with youwhat stays
Notice, for a moment, what you are actually chasing when you feel restless. It is rarely the thing itself; it is the sense that something better than what you already hold is still out there, waiting. This verse does not ask you to stop wanting. It points to the one gain past which there is nothing better left to imagine, so that the very engine of restlessness, the comparison to a further 'more', quietly runs out of fuel.
So notice, the next time your mind reaches for something better than what it holds, that the reaching is the whole of the restlessness; and rest, if only for a moment, in the thought that some gain, rightly seen, truly has no better beyond it.
Read deeper
Everything a full study holds, folded below.
Word by word
All the commentary, woven together
The commentary, woven together
machine-assisted draft, pending review
Convergence
he verse names a gain that ends all further seeking. Having gained 'which', the yogi thinks no other gain greater than it. The commentators who address the verse directly identify that 'which' as the gain of the Self, the happiness belonging to one's own true nature, and the point is decisive: once reached, there is nothing left to want because nothing higher exists to be wanted.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
This happiness is read as unsurpassable in the strict sense, not merely very great. The mind moves from a good toward a better one only while a better one can still be seen; here the very limit of happiness has been reached, so there is nothing left to drift toward. The settled thought that follows is rendered as: what was to be done is done, what was to be attained is attained.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The verse then poses its harder test. Established in this state, the yogi is not shaken even by heavy, severe pain. Shankara and Madhusudana both reach for the sharpest instance, the fall of a weapon, while Sridhara names the recurring, lesser hardships of cold and heat; together they cover the claim from its worst case down to its ordinary ones.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Read together, the two halves define the yoga-state by its fruit on both sides at once: it wards off the unwanted, so heavy pain cannot dislodge it, and it secures the wanted, so the supreme happiness is gained and held. Sridhara names this double mapping explicitly as the very mark of yoga.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Both Ramanuja and, on the fragment that survives, the wider Dvaita line insist that whatever this gain is, it is not simply the self's own independent achievement: for Ramanuja the discipline itself remains a good held in ongoing relation to the Lord, and for the Madhva line the very happiness described here is said to have, in truth, the form of the Lord.
Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
The gain is the Self itself, and the standing is unshakeable because it is grounded in a truth, not merely maintained by effort. Shankara treats the verse as completing the description of the yogi's rest in the Self begun two verses earlier; Madhusudana sharpens the internal logic into two proofs, unmoved by any greater-seeming happiness because none is greater, and unmoved by any pain because nothing can outweigh what has already been gained, right down to the extreme case of a weapon's fall.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja keeps the gain relational rather than absorptive: what is gained is the discipline of yoga itself, valued above every other gain and still longed for even when the practitioner rests from active practice. The pain that cannot shake this steadiness is given a human face, the loss of a worthy son, keeping the picture one of an embodied person in ongoing relation to duties and to the Lord, not a self that has ceased to register its world.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
The single surviving line attached to this passage reads the happiness described here as having, in truth, the form of the Lord, denying that it is the self's own independent possession. No fuller paragraph of Madhva's own on 6.22 survives; what can honestly be said is only this narrow point, offered without extending it further into claims the source itself does not make.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
Abhinavagupta's extant comment treats 6.20 through 6.23 as one continuous passage rather than addressing 6.22 specifically. Within that sweep he describes the mind's withdrawal into a happiness in which objects no longer cloud it, and a bond with pain that breaks once an old habitual disturbance passes and is met with compassion rather than delusion. The verse's own specific claims are not commented on in their own right, and any Kashmir Shaiva reading of them here is only a clearly labeled extension of the general Shaiva view, not his stated word.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara reads the verse as naming the gain, the happiness of the Self called niratishaya, surpassing all, and then reading the standing that follows as mapped by two fruits together, the warding off of unwanted hardship and the securing of wanted happiness. He is notably concrete about ordinary, recurring pains, cold and heat, rather than only the single dramatic case of a mortal wound, keeping the claim close to a practicing yogi's actual life.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Read for a general audience, Madhusudana's own careful two-step argument reads as a portable account of psychological stability: a mind stops chasing anything once it has reached something past which no better thing can be conceived, and that same settledness, tested from the inside, proves itself precisely by surviving contact with the worst pain rather than merely the absence of any pain at all.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
Does this verse promise that a realized person feels no pain at all, or only that pain can no longer move them?
The verse's own language is about being shaken, not about sensation. It says the one established here is not overpowered even by heavy sorrow, which is a claim about steadiness under pain, not a claim that pain fails to register at all.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Shankara and Madhusudana both reach for the sharpest case they can, a weapon's fall, precisely because it is the hardest instance to explain away; if the claim held only for mild discomfort it would be a much smaller claim than the one actually being made.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Ramanuja's example keeps this grounded in ordinary life rather than in some altered state of sensation: even a pain as heavy as losing a worthy son does not shake the person who is steady in this discipline, which describes fortitude carried through real grief, not an absence of feeling.
Rāmānujācārya
Contemplation
Notice, for a moment, what you are actually chasing when you feel restless. It is rarely the thing itself; it is the sense that something better than what you already hold is still out there, waiting. This verse does not ask you to stop wanting. It points to the one gain past which there is nothing better left to imagine, so that the very engine of restlessness, the comparison to a further 'more', quietly runs out of fuel.
Sit with this · sonnet-5-authored
All the translations and commentary
Pull up a chair.
You have come to sit with this verse. When you are ready to hear the translators and the commentators in full, open a tradition in the doorways below, or add a voice by name above.
Also hear this verse, tradition by tradition.